Sunday, February 09, 2014

How Can I Make the Wizard Believe Me?

Last Sunday was a rare opportunity for a lazy afternoon and evening at home because Katherine had an aide who would work that day. I figured I would have all afternoon to play on the computer, read the Sunday paper, call my brother and sister, and then blog on here while Mary Ellen and Gerald watched the Super Bowl together. I had chili in the crock pot and some thawed chocolate cake and Mary Ellen fixed a pizza and brought other snacks. 

After lunch dishes were cleaned, I came downstairs early in mid-afternoon, to start my fun day.  First, of course, I would do as I always do and check my email. I always opened it daily for a quick run down to see if there were anything personal or important.  I’d check comments on Facebook and Red Room that come on my hotmail account.  I’d delete stuff and vindictively put into the junk spot any emails from anyone wanting to share a huge inheritance with me.  The best made plans can go awry, and mine did.  Hotmail and Microsoft wanted my password before I could open my account.  I was a little annoyed at not getting in with a click as I usually did, but I had a leisurely afternoon ahead of me and I could be patient.  No problem.  I had passwords written down in a little book my sister gave me once. 

At least I though there was no problem.  But what I said was my password, they did not agree with.  Had I typed it wrong?  Of course, I could not see it, so I typed it again (and again as the afternoon continued).  Since I was so suspicious, they wanted me to type those crazy letters all lopsided and run on top of each other.  They did not like the way I did that either even though I thought I was doing splendidly with their indecipherable codes.  How can you tell a lower case c from an upper case C?  Or a little s from a big S when the sizes of all the letters are different?  Is that what I was doing wrong?

I spent two hours and then quit and came back to it later.  And later every day except yesterday.  I have probably spent ten or more hours by now with no results.  I know who I am.  But the Microsoft Wizard  does not want to believe me.

Anyhow to make a sad story sadder and less long, just let me say that the other account that I could send to was pronounced closed because I had not used it recently, according to them.  It  is true I co not use the old genealogy account with my maiden name included as often as I did when I had time to work on family history.   But I have used it within the past few months.  So I had not choice but to open a new account on outlook.com to satisfy them.  So far I haven’t figured out how to get into it.  But anyway I have never gotten far enough along to let that great Wizard (or whoever is behind all this ruckus) send me anything.  I asked for a code once, and they sent me one by phone, which I dutifully and carefully wrote down.  But the Wizard replied it was incorrect or something. 

Three times I have filled out a long form which asked me for titles of recent emails and addresses I’d sent emails to recently.  (I had no idea I was supposed to keep all this record on paper.  I thought that was what the computer did.)  They wanted to know the name of my favorite childhood movie.  I don’t remember telling them such a thing, and I am not one to do favorites.  So I wrote down Blossoms in the Dust and hoped the Wizard knew that was my favorite.  I hope I did not once tell somebody it was Home in Indiana—the horse movie I cried so hard in that the nice lady beside me was trying to console me.

It took a long time to fill this form out, but I did it.  In fact, three times I have done it.  The first time the “Submit” button would not work.  Then the second time, they told me that I could not send it because maintenance was being done.  Tonight they told me to try later because they were having a problem.  But my stuff is not longer there, and I am too tired to play this game with the Wizard again. 

Will I ever get my email accounts back?  Will anybody in Cyberspace ever believe I am Sue Glasco and my favorite childhood movie was Blossoms in the Dust?  Only the Wizard knows for sure and the Wizard is not available because he/she/they is/are having a problem himself/herself/themselves.


In the meantime or perhaps forever, if you need to get me a message, just go to my Facebook page and private message me there.    

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